


Dibs!

by Rokutagrl



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Beach Holidays, Beach Volleyball, Drinking, M/M, Partying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 20:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21087728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rokutagrl/pseuds/Rokutagrl
Summary: Kageyama texting Hinata: I just walked into this party and someone yelled dibsOikawa texting Iwaizumi: IWA-CHAN I’M REALLY DRUNK AND I FUCKEF UP SOME HOT GUY WALKED INTO THE PARTY AND I YELLED DIBSOikawa is a mess, Kageyama just wants to play some volleyball, and Kuroo is the best wing man ever.





	Dibs!

**Author's Note:**

> Based off that [one meme](https://god-fucking-dammit-mizutani.tumblr.com/post/182183176393/kageyama-texting-hinatai-just-walked-into-this) I posted ten hundred years ago and finally turned into a full fic haahhh

Kageyama has been _ abandoned. _

He knows it from the moment he steps out of the bathroom, the lack of Hinata in the room evident by the silence. He had been here, not too long ago. Kageyama had simply left to relieve himself before they went on their way, but now that he’s finished the ginger who should be sharing his room is now gone. 

It is in a text that he learns, _ Kenma called and said he needed help getting there! Kuroo already left to help set up. Meet you at the party! _

And, _ You absolutely better show up!!!! _

Kageyama glowers down at his phone, a good reason for Hinata’s complete desertion lacking in his messages. He almost sends back, _ We could have gone to get him together. Idiot! _ But he thinks better on it for a not so insignificant part of Kageyama realizes he could feign innocence just by turning off his phone’s sound and then showing Hinata he had missed every text and call thereafter. Kageyama would make sure Hinata knew that he'd forfeited all rights to tell Kageyama to _ please come with me _ ever again, that _ you need to relax and have an actual vacation for once _was hogwash, but the internal fight with his own imagined Hinata was exhausting enough on it's own. 

It was also not in Kageyama to give up on promises once he had made them, so begrudgingly he takes his own copy of the key card from their shared hotel room and his wallet, for no other reason than habit, and makes the final decision to head off to the party. 

Just outside their room smells intensely of salt and sunblock. Kageyama breathes it in, more from nerves than to soak up the atmosphere, but is taken off guard when the door slams harshly behind him. He smacks along his back pocket for the now familiar rectangle, making extra certain that he had remembered to grab the keycard. It’s not like he can trust Hinata to remember.

Sand already spills up the round of his sandals when he steps outside, slips uncomfortably between the spaces of his toes. They’ve been staying practically on the beach for the better half of the week. It had been Hinata’s decision—both the location and the exact hotel room. 

“We’ll be able to wake up to the water!” Hinata had sounded excited, but Kageyama had found it odd that he would be so enthusiastic about being under the hot sun for long hours, when his skin burned red so easily. Even with copious amounts of sunblock his farmer’s tan from their outdoor practices at university had barely ebbed away, just darkened further next to the reddening, blistering burns along his usually covered skin. Day two had already found him unable to venture to the beach without a wet shirt draped over him. 

But Kageyama does get it, for a brief moment, when he looks up from his phone and over the long expanse of the blue ocean slipping up and down the shore. It is the sun, hanging off the horizon, dipping down into the depths of the far off shore as if taking a late evening swim along the waves, that just about leaves him breathless. It reminds him of an oil painting, something he would have seen hanging in a museum back when he was young enough to be forced on those sort of school trips. 

Quickly, Kageyama checks his phone again. He has to shuffle through texts to find the address Kuroo had left for him, and plugs it into his maps app. Getting lost won’t be an apt enough excuse for him, where Hinata is concerned. 

He’s not _ Kenma. _

Along the beach reception is hard to pick up, but Kageyama does have a vague enough memory of where the event should be. Kuroo, Kenma’s friend, had pointed it out early that day. They’d been on one of those obnoxious yellow boats, the sort built to look like bananas, at the former’s insistence that it would be fun. No one had been swayed to his side. 

"Just over by those volleyball nets," Kuroo had pointed out. It was difficult to hear him over the roar of the waves lapping at their sides and stinging Kageyama in the eyes, or the visceral yowls of Hinata everytime the boat reared up. But he had gotten the vague notion it was by the nets just down the long row of beach villas past his and Hinata's hotel. 

Kuroo repeated himself again at lunch once Kenma had helped Hinata, on shaky legs, out of the restrooms and to their seats, pointing to the off distant area where Kageyama could see people playing a game of beach volleyball if he squinted. 

"I made friends with the guys renting that villa," he had explained. "They're throwing an open invitation beach party tonight." 

Which was as appetizing to Kageyama as lunch seemed to be for Hinata at that moment, green about the gills as he was. 

But Kuroo, who he had known all of the same week that Hinata had started dating _ Kenma _, had been a strong opponent against Kageyama over beach volleyball, must have already had him pegged, because he asks, "Did I mention that they all play professional volleyball?" His smile had curled, mischievously. "They'll probably even play a game tonight, if you think you can take them." 

It's that memory of a _ challenge _ that sparks the motivation in Kageyama's leg, has him digging his feet in the sand and taking off past their own conveniently located volleyball court, focused on the one further in the distance. 

After all, Kageyama didn't break promises. Hopefully Kuroo didn't, either. 

* * *

"Coaster," Shigeru requests. From the kitchen side of the breakfast bar he shoves one against Oikawa's glass. Ice trills where it meets the crystal and Oikawa is just drunk enough to enjoy the joke, Relax Inn Time, scrawled across the coaster even though it is objectively terrible. 

"As I was saying," Oikawa continues, lifting his glass in the air. Shigeru quickly wipes the ring of condensation from the counter and replaces it with the coaster. Oikawa keeps his glass raised and tells the room as if he is making a toast, "I have finally figured out the problem this year_ ." _Oikawa slams his glass down to make his point all that more poignant. 

"_ Coaster _," Shigeru reminds him when it hits the bare counter. 

"Mercury retrograde is ruining _ everything _," Oikawa sniffs, taking up another sip of his wine.

Matsukawa barely looks back over his shoulder from the couch. The irritatingly loud clicking of his texting barely falters as he says, "Here I thought you'd finally realized it was your personality."

Maki snorts beside Oikawa. "Creativity points for blaming mercury instead of good taste."

Oikawa sticks his tongue out at his friends. Maki just sends him a peace sign back. 

He grabs the glass of wine back, empties it of every drop of liquor, and let's the foot of the glass thunk against the counter again, his forehead following swiftly to join it. 

“It used to be so easy,” Oikawa whines. “Summer romance was never this hard.” A hand he suspects belongs to Maki pats him gently on the back. _ Consoling _, does not fit the action. Patronizing, perhaps, feels more appropriate.

_ "Coaster!" _

Iwaizumi, toweling his hair fresh from the shower, hoists himself up on the free stool next to Oikawa who turns to look up at him. 

“I always have a date for the summer party,” Oikawa continues. 

“We could just not have a party this year,” Iwaizumi puts in over his head. Oikawa glares under the long line of his bangs. His chin feels sore where the edge of the bar cuts in just under his jaw. 

"I second it," Shigeru puts in, a tad too excitedly.

“Absolutely not!” Oikawa gasps, sitting up to attention. His right hand smacks his chest, offended. “It’s tradition!”

“Right,” Maki agrees, leaning into Oikawa’s side. “We get traditionally smashed, and then we play a terrible game of drunken volleyball, and then we traditionally pass out.”

Oikawa throws one of his arms around the broad of Maki’s shoulder and pulls him in closer, grinning at Iwaizumi’s soured expression. “See? Maki-chan _ knows.” _

“Maki will be passed out at the fire after his first glass of wine,” Matsukawa chimes in from the couch. 

Oikawa nods. “Just as tradition dictates.” 

"Tradition is dead this year," Iwaizumi pushes on, still frowning. "You," he pokes Oikawa dead in the center of his chest, "can't find a date." 

"Mercury killed the party," Matsukawa deadpans. Oikawa wrinkles his nose at him, even if the other can't see him, nor if he cares. His phone continues to sing with every touch of his keypad, despite the years of cajoling from everyone (read: Oikawa) to get him to silence the damned thing. He refused to even quiet it during the middle of the night, and that had gotten Oikawa to never bunk with him again. 

Kuroo plops two trays down on the free zone of the breakfast bar, a beautiful display of cut up cheeses and pre-packaged dips and crackers laid out between them. "Wa-lah!" he says, showing off his display. 

Oikawa grabs at a slice of cheese, but gets his hand smacked by Iwaizumi. "Iwa-chan!" Oikawa whines.

"Thanks for helping finish the set-up tonight," Iwaizumi tells Kuroo politely. Oikawa wonders if he leaves his hand up, over the trays, on instinct. He doesn't dare to take a second try at sneaking an early snack. 

Kuroo grins brightly. "Not a problem," he says. His hand disappears behind one of the walls for a second and comes back with a quarter empty bottle of wine. Kuroo tilts about half of it into Oikawa's glass until it's just about overflowing. Shigeru follows behind quickly with a wad of paper towels.

"I appreciate the effort to keep our security deposit in tact," Iwaizumi tells him, "but you won't be able to keep everyone's drinks on a coaster tonight."

Shigeru looks down at the small stack of coasters still in his hands, consideringly.

"Speaking of problems," Kuroo continues, holding the bottle out until it clinks gently against Oikawa's glass, a quiet melody like a wind chime passing around the living room. He tells Oikawa to drink to the toast. "I think yours is easily solved, Oika'a." 

Kuroo tips back the bottle, his Adam's apple bobbing as he downs a sizable gulp. Oikawa waits for him to finish, taking another sip. Kuroo releases the lip of the bottle with a satisfying breath. 

"How so?" Oikawa asks, encouragingly. He takes another, healthy sip from his own glass. 

"Tradition doesn't say you can't find a date _ at _ the party." Oikawa gapes, the idea foreign and _ good _as Kuroo leans over the bar, grin morphing into something positively mirthful. "And I'll happily be your wing man." 

"You are now my smartest, bestest friend," Oikawa breathes, awed. He feels positively giddy, his mind full of liquor and _ possibility. _

Maki makes a snorting noise, almost a feigned offense. Behind his back he can hear Iwaizumi telling Maki, "Everyone is entitled to their wrong opinion." 

Oikawa waves his hand dismissively. 

"I think we have a bigger problem," Matsukawa starts, turning his torso to look back at them over the couch back. Oikawa swivels in his bar stool to meet his gaze, but Matsukawa is clearly looking at his, somehow full again, wine glass. Oikawa can hear the sloshing of liquid by his ear, the wine bottle lifting up off the counter in his peripherals as Kuroo takes another swig. "Between the two of you there won't be any booze left for the rest of the party."

"That doesn't sound like_ my _problem." Oikawa can hear the grin in Kuroo's words, can imagine the exact look on his face without turning back, though their friendship is still young. "But I know how to remedy it."

Shigeru is toeing on his shoes when Kuroo leans out across the bar to call out to their youngest member: "Bring back more booze!"

"A real fix-it Felix, this one."

* * *

Hinata is, decidedly, not _ here _either.

The party is already up in high gear by the time Kageyama climbs the stairs to the back deck. Behind him the sun has come to rest, just a shadow of itself now, casting a greenish blue light along the far shore. It makes the porch lights and those beaming through the windows glow with a heavy glare that makes Kageyama unconsciously scowl as he approaches.

Music leaks out into the night through the open sliding doors. Kageyama has to push past bodies lingering in the frame just to get inside. 

_ An appearance _, he reminds himself. It's all he needs to do before he can spend the rest of the evening setting serves and catching receives at the beach volleyball court. None of the people currently playing are Hinata, much to his chagrin. 

Kageyama sends a wistful look back at the game already under way, the phantom memory of pushing off the sand floor coursing through his legs. 

Someone leans up against the window he had been looking back through and breaks Kageyama’s gaze. He looks around what appears to be the living room, but Hinata's distinctive mane of hair makes no appearance. He looks between the spaces of people's elbows, listens under the beat of the music for the loud, obnoxious timbre of his friend to no avail. Kageyama slips around the partial wall separating off the kitchen and hates to feel disappointed that all he finds is food. He grabs a plate for his unending journey ahead. 

Kageyama writes, _ Where are you moron? _ With one hand only to hear nothing back. _ I'm going to leave soon. _

He looks around the room again for any familiar faces. Kenma would be ideal, his hair also a pretty memorable beacon, but Kageyama only sees a few platinum blondes.

"What are you looking for?" 

Kageyama jumps.

A stranger looks up at him from the couch over the edge of his phone, regarding Kageyama with bored, droopy eyes. He had spoken in between songs, so there was no mistaking what he had said. The stranger looks down at what Kageyama presumes is a text before he puts his phone down beside him. A little louder over the opening instrumentals of the next song he says, "You'll get whiplash the way you've been swinging your neck around." 

Kageyama stares. His heartbeat quickens in his chest and he's too afraid to speak for he might choke on it— Kageyama isn't _ good _ at parties. He's barely decent at _ people. _

The guy on the couch pops an inquisitive eyebrow at Kageyama's silence. "Are you looking for a drink?" He asks over the ramble about them, a claustrophobic cacophony of music and chattering. 

Kageyama shakes his head swiftly. 

"A friend?" 

Kageyama nods. 

The stranger says something, but it's swallowed up quickly over a scream about, _ "Shots!" _Just as the current song dies, he repeats, "Have you checked the gameroom?" 

Kageyama shakes his head again. His helpful new companion points behind himself and says, "Through that door, down the stairs." He grabs at his phone again and starts tapping away. 

Kageyama watches him a moment, a strange sense of familiarity rising in him to see the look of concentration on the other's face. He never looks back up and Kageyama breathes out a gracious, "Thank you." But if the stranger hears him he will never know. 

People push against him on their way up as Kageyama traverses down to the lowest level of the villa. A few seem to stop to grab at his attention, but for what Kageayama doesn't really care. _ It's not safe to stop on staircases _ , he almost thinks to say. Safety is _ important, _though Kageyama doesn't think that's their priority. 

Midway down the steps the wall tapers off into a low hanging ceiling and Kageyama ducks his head down to peek about. No sign of Hinata still. 

On the far wall the speakers are screaming out some half garbled mess of a song. Kageyama can barely understand it where he stands, the split sound system competing with the garbage streaming upstairs, but it doesn't sound quite as polished as he expects from a radio or CD. He's still certain over the cacophony of noise, Hinata would still be heard if he were present.

And true enough, Kageyama doesn't see him when he stops at the bottom of the staircase, looking around the corner for something red, or yellow and black. There's still the same level of conversation down here, but nothing stands out to Kageyama. 

He whips out his phone to see if Hinata has responded yet (which, of course not), when an unfamiliar voice calls over the music on the loudspeaker, "Dibs!" and half the room silences. 

The mic feedback makes Kageyama grit his teeth, but he barely gives it a thought until someone laughs through the speakers saying, "You can't seriously be calling dibs on Kageyama _ of all people." _

Suddenly he looks up. A plethora of eyes stare back at him. Kuroo half turns around from his perch on a billiards table with mic in hand to stare at Kageyama, shit eating grin lighting up his mouth. He waves and subconsciously Kageyama waves back. Whoever he had clearly been speaking to just now is long gone. 

Kageyama looks back down at his unsent text to Hinata, half dazed, and tells him instead, _ I just walked into this party and someone called dibs. _

A second later the gameroom door thunders open and Hinata glares down at him from the top of the stairs. "There you are Kageyama!" He shouts. "Where have you been?!" 

Kageyama is only shocked for a second, unable to process either event right now, but it's anger that hits him harder, swifter, looking up at his _ supposed _ friend.

"Me?" He grits his teeth as he stomps his way up the stairs. "Where have _ you _been, dumbass?" 

Hinata squawks, almost knocking Kenma onto his ass in his scramble to runaway. 

* * *

Oikawa doesn’t know of a single ailment drunken karaoke can’t cure. 

Until, that is, today. 

The second the last notes of _ Barbie Girl _fades from the portable karaoke machine, he declares, holding a hand over his microphone, “Tonight's a bust.” He drapes himself over the unused billiards table, letting out a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. The action makes his stomach lurch just a little, but the theatrics, he thinks, are necessary. "All the hot people are already taken," he says into the tattered fabric stretched across the table. 

He hears Kuroo hoist himself up on the edge, feels the flush of his thigh against the side of his own stomach. Overhead the mic groans through the speakers. 

"Maybe we haven't been trying enough," Kuroo muses quietly. Oikawa can feel his leg jerk where it rests besides him. 

"Don't have to try," Oikawa says, looking up at Kuroo seriously. Kuroo looks back at him over the lip of the song menu he’s perusing through. "People just flock to me. Naturally." 

"I can see that," blessedly _ wonderful _Kuroo says. "It's mighty crowded tonight," he drawls. "Maybe you've gotta stake your claim somehow, Oika'a." Oikawa stares at him. Kuroo titters, tilting backwards over the table. "Or blame it on Mercury." 

"That one."

Kuroo laughs. It feeds through the speakers and Oikawa doesn’t care if people are looking at them now.

He sits up, trying to mimic Kuroo's graceful seating but wobbles off the raised edge and onto the full of the table. His rump hits one of the balls not properly placed in a pocket, or in a triangle in the center, and _ hurts. _The ball shoots off across the table as if running from him and Oikawa braces himself on his arms. Kuroo laughs harder. 

He'll blame it on the shots. Oikawa's certain there were shots, but he can admit the last few hours are no clearer to him than smoke. 

"Asking for a friend," Oikawa starts, kicking up his feet, making sure the microphone still clutched in his hand is far enough away to not pick up on his voice. "How does one stake a claim."

Kuroo looks at him, thoughtful for a second. Oikawa is momentarily distracted by a couple walking by the table. It feels like everyone's in a relationship.

"Call shotgun," Kuroo suggests. 

Oikawa _ pffts _ at his idea. His body feels too heavy for his arms and so he lets himself collapse along the pool table on his back now. Above him the ceiling swims. Someone walks by, giving him a very confused look but Oikawa just shoots him his most winsome smile. Oikawa frowns when the guy walks away, when _ clearly _ he should be fawning over the cutie completely draped across the table. 

_ Mercury, _Oikawa tells himself. 

“How about this one?” Kuroo distracts him, holding open the song menu above his head. The pages flap unhelpfully as he squints up at the words, begging them to sit still in his head. Kuroo helpfully taps the one he wants and reads, “Dancing Queen.”

Into the mic, Oikawa agrees, “Absolutely,” and it echoes in the room. Kuroo leaves to plug in their next choice. 

The man is long gone when Oikawa looks back over, but it’s definitely for the best as now Oikawa has the perfect view of _ him _ just over the lip of the table’s farthest edge, the prettiest boy he's seen all night—in decades, if he's honest— haloed perfectly by the circular hanging lamp above his head, like the angel of anti-loneliness. 

_ And nobody else is talking to him. _ The more sober part of his mind tells Oikawa that _ of course they aren't _because he's clearly texting with a significant other or something, but his drunken mouth is not as quick on the uptake. 

Kuroo is already back, warm against his side, as the first notes of _ Dancing Queen _start up on the surround system. Oikawa breathes in. 

"Dibs!" He yells, pointing at the guy at the base of the stairs just in case there's any doubts from the rest of the room that has _ ab-so-lutely _ heard him—could in no way ignore the blaring feedback on the speakers. There is no reaction from the guy himself, and Oikawa releases the breath he had been holding, modesty and reason returning to him too late.

Kuroo guffaws. "You can't seriously be calling dibs on Kageyama _ of all people." _

And, of course, that too blares throughout the room.

_ Oh shit _ . It's all he thinks of as the boy jolts just a little at the sound of his name. Oikawa doesn't wait for him to look up before his instincts tell him to _ run. _

* * *

_ IWA-CHAN I’M REALLY DRUNK AND I FUCKEF UP! SOME HOT GUY WALKED INTO THE PARTY AND I YELLED DIBS!! _

“There, there,” Kuroo coos, rubbing Oikawa’s shoulder as he sniffles at the unresponded text. Kuroo had found him not too long after he had fled, forcing himself into the bathroom. Oikawa’s thankful that he had forgotten to lock the door behind him because he doesn’t think a latch would have stopped Kuroo, and then he’d have to explain to Shigeru’s parents why their son had coronary arrest. 

The words of his text, as Oikawa tries to reread them, swim along the bright phone screen and he feels as if he could be sick for reasons unrelated to liquor. 

His head hurts. Iwaizumi’s reply helps very little when it is nothing more than, _ Dumbass. _

“Hey now,” Kuroo says at Oikawa’s next bout of sniffles. “I’m sure Kageyama doesn’t mind. He barely seemed to notice. He’s probably already left now.”

Kuroo reaches forward for the box of kleenex on the sink counter, knocking several coasters off their perch in his attempt. One of them lands right on Oikawa’s foot and tells him to _ Live Your Beach Day. _Oikawa wants to laugh, but all that comes out is a hiccup. 

“You wanna play some volleyball, Oika’a?” Kuroo asks. Oikawa can just barely right his vision enough to look him in the eyes before nodding. 

But volleyball is a _ mistake. _

“It’ll be okay,” Kuroo tells him. To the court he says, “We’ll take winners!” Some of them nod their acknowledgement and Oikawa’s stomach churns to watch _ The Kageyama _barely look his ways, eyes focused on the opposite side of the net as he lifts the end of his shirt to wipe away sweat. 

He groans.

Kuroo pulls him to the sandy floor and doubles down, “It’ll be fine.” But Kageyama bends, every muscle in his legs tensing and bulging, gaze focused on the incoming ball above him, and Oikawa thinks _ fine _ describes _ him _ better than the situation _ . _

He sinks back further into the sand, wishing it would engulf him, but it doesn’t. Instead Oikawa’s fingers grasp at the ground, tightening around the sand and he likes the way it spills through his grasp like granulated putty. He has to squint to follow the game, all the players spinning and dancing in his vision. 

The music hardly travels this far from the villa, and so Oikawa listens to the roll of every wave break on the night shore, the jeering and yowling of everyone on the court. It smells of salt down here, of lemongrass and citronella from the candles strategically placed about the court; of liquor and memories that Oikawa holds dear, and some that only sit on the tip of his tongue. 

He breathes in deep and lets his head loll onto the tanning chair pulled up beside him. The person occupying it snores loudly. 

Maki smiles back at Oikawa in his sleep, perfectly content to sleep the party away. _ Just as tradition dictates. _

His drink, Oikawa finds, is nestled between the white straps along the chairs, holding it up as if it had been designed for such a purpose. _ He might be the smartest of us yet, _Oikawa concedes and helps himself to the rest of Maki’s wine. He won't miss it, Oikawa reasons. 

* * *

“I just wanted you to get out of the hotel,” Hinata whines, “not kill a man!”

“Shut up,” Kageyama snaps. He pulls tightly on the netting, watching as Kuroo tends to the possible corpse. It feels like he’s squeezing his own heart until Kuroo laughs. 

“He’s not dead,” Kuroo calls back. Kageyama releases his grip. “But there’s definitely going to be a pretty nice bruise,” he titters. “Help me help him up,” he asks Kageyama who ducks under the net to help Kuroo hoist his victim. The guy blinks drearily at him, amber eyes catching the burning lights of the citronella candles around them before his head lolls completely against Kageyama’s shoulder.

“You’ll set for me, Kenma, right?” He hears Hinata badger his new boyfriend somewhere behind him. “I mean, if Kageyama goes to jail.”

Kenma hums. “We’ll see.” 

He’s about to argue with the both of them, that he’s probably not about to get arrested, when suddenly the whole weight of the guy falls heavy against Kageyama’s side. Kuroo is wiping his hands, quite literally, of the situation. 

“As punishment,” Kuroo tells him, “you should be the one to take him inside.”

Kageyama frowns. “By myself?”

“Well of course,” Kuroo says. “If we don’t keep playing, someone else will take the court from us.” He grins at Kageyama, and something in it makes him feel suspicious. 

Hinata cheers, jumping up from where he had squatted beside Kenma on the sand. “Kenma, set for me!” It doesn’t sound like a request, especially not when Hinata tugs at his arm, while his boyfriend wrestles weakly against it, to keep his hand on his game console. 

“Can’t you just hit it back and forth?” He asks, but he gets to his feet nonetheless and gently drops his game onto the safety of a pile of towels. 

Kuroo shoos Kageyama on. “You can play more when you get back.” 

A very mild dose of guilt makes Kageyama listen, heaving out a sigh and pushing his way up the sand dunes back to the villa.

“Make sure he’s on his side!” Kuroo calls out to him. “Or he really will die!” 

Against his neck the guy in Kageyama’s charge mutters something, but what he cannot fathom. The stranger’s hair is a right mess, brushing and tickling the underside of Kageyama's jaw, ruffled further by the ocean breeze around them. They move along the sand like a clumsy, three legged race and Kageyama has to keep tugging him to get the stranger to move along. It’s a miracle that no one is jamming up the sliding door entrance when the two of them stumble through it. Kageyama just has to find a bed— any bed— to deposit the guy beside him on and then he’ll be free to play more volleyball—

And then a couple waltzes into them, dancing to their own personal rhythm and Kageyama’s hand slips off the side table he tries to brace their weight on. The crash to the ground isn’t as terrible as the body knocking the wind out of him, or the half dozen objects pelting Kageyama on his head. He grabs for one of the offending objects, squinting at the inscription, _ I Like Beach Huts And I Cannot Lie! _Inscribed on a small, cork board square with a picture of a little beach hut and lounging chairs.

Kageyama glares at the coaster until the feeling of something soft and _ ticklish _ rubs along his stomach. He drops the coaster, right between his eyes.

“Soft,” the drunk sprawled atop him murmurs. Kageyama averts his glare to the top of his head, watches his hair bob up and down where the brunette nuzzles into his skin, using Kaegayama’s stomach like a pillow as if it’s the most natural reaction. “So soft.” 

The other man's eyes are bright when they turn to look up at Kageyama, and something in his chest flutters. 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you dumbass,” someone says above them, grabbing the brunette by the scruff of his collar. The man yelps and Kageyama follows him up, just barely pushing off the floor.

“No, Iwa-chan!” he shouts when the other begins to tug on his arm with a, “Let’s get you to bed, Oikawa.”

But _ Oikawa _ is obstinate, _ stubborn, _ and before Kageyama knows it, he's already back on his rump, the other man’s arms wrapped around his neck. Though it’s not much of a consolation, Kageyama’s thankful they hit the sofa cushions this time, even if he’ll be sporting several bruises come morning from everything but volleyball. Oikawa grins up at him and Kageyama can already see the rosey patch of skin that will certainly turn purple, blooming just under his right eye, and maybe it is no small form of _ payback. _

Oikawa drops his arms from Kageyama's neck and instead wraps them about his forearm, blowing a raspberry back towards _ Iwa-chan. _

“S’mine,” he murmurs, cheek pressing gently against Kageyama’s biceps. “I called it.”

_ Iwa-chan _ , surprisingly, looks like he understands something. Kageyama feels like he’s getting whiplash, looking between them. _ Iwa-chan _ lets out an aggravated sigh and tells Oikawa, “You’ve taken up enough of his time tonight. Go to bed you dumb drunk.”

Oikawa has taken to ignoring him, and instead throws his full attention onto Kageyama, asking, “Name.”

It takes him a second before, “Kageyama Tobio.”

“Tobio-chan,” Oikawa says and his expression looks absolutely _ blissful _that Kageyama swallows his protest down. 

“I should get back to playing,” Kageyama insists instead, pointing to the door. “They need a setter.” 

“M’better.” 

Kageyama squints. Iwa-chan snorts. 

“We play professionally," he translates.

Kuroo hadn't said who was renting the villa, what team had been throwing the bash, but when Oikawa grins winsomely up at him, it clicks. 

Iwaizumi Hajime. Matsukawa Issei.

_ Oikawa Tooru _.

Kageyama had followed his career on and off since middle school, had read articles about his setting style and had watched game after game on pixelated television sets, memorizing and perfecting that powerhouse of a jump serve. 

None of the faded magazine images, nor the grainy footage had done the man any justice.

Kageyama swallows, heart thundering in his chest. He gave _ Oikawa Tooru _ a black eye at his own party. 

Oikawa stabs a single digit into Kageyama’s temple and clicks his tongue. “S'im better than you.” 

Kageyama narrows his eyes, his heart skipping again at such a challenge. “Prove it.” 

“S'Will,” Oikawa titters. His head leans down on Kageyama’s shoulder and the sharp scent of his cologne and sea breeze is intoxicating enough that Kageyama almost forgets they were arguing about something important. Even from the angle of Oikawa's head on his chest, he can see the lazy fluttering of his eyes. "But tomorrow,” he says snappily. 

Kageyama feels his fingers flex. Oikawa’s hair is soft where it lays against him, tickles against his jaw again, and Kageyama’s not quite sure if he’s feeling restless with the need to pet it, or get back to the game outside.

Iwa-chan, Kageyama realizes belatedly, has left them already. It’ll be the second time in one night that he’s been stranded. 

And yet, he finds, there's no animosity this time. 

Oikawa wastes little time relaxing into Kageyama’s side, throwing his feet up on the couch. Someone at the far end makes a surprised noise, but he doesn’t move to relocate Oikawa’s legs either. It must be a trick of his, Kaegyama decides, to be so blasé in his actions that others lose the will to fight. _ Charm _ is a word that sounds suspiciously like it’s voiced by Kuroo in his head when Kageyama thinks it. 

The other scooches about for a minute until he’s able to look up at Kageyama. His lashes from this angle are long, the shadows hanging lightly over his cheeks in the yellow, dim lighting. It almost makes the bruising under his eye look _ not so terrible _ and Kageyama should push it, should push _ Oikawa _ off and get back to the game outside— he can almost feel the grains of sand between his toes, the resistance of the earth as he pushes off it to throw a jump serve— but his chest is thrumming with the excitement of _ tomorrow _and it roots him to the scratchy, old couch more than the body pinning him down. 

“Hey, hey, Tobio-chan~” Oikawa says, suddenly clamping both hands atop his cheeks roughly. “You look like someone pretty I know.” 

“We haven’t met,” Kageyama frowns. 

Oikawa’s eyes blink slowly, as if he can’t quite grasp this thought. “I’d know if we did,” he asserts a second later. His breath smells faintly of liquor and Kageyama stunts his breathing until it subsides. Oikawa’s fingers find their way into his hair, pushing up his bangs. The smile on his face can only be described as _ dopey. _"I'll forgive mercury this time," he says. 

"What?"

Oikawa continues, “Hey, hey, Tobio-chan~ do you play on a team?”

“I will,” Kageyama tells him. “This winter.” 

“You can’t be on my team,” Oikawa mumbles, resting his head down on Kageyama's shoulder. Absently, Oikawa drags his fingers along the skin of his forearms. It’s pleasant and Kageyama feels warm along the places where Oikawa’s touch lingers.

Kageyama dares to ask, “Why?” 

Oikawa blinks up at him, but his administrations continue. Kageyama is confoundingly appreciative. “Because I’m the setter.”

“Afraid I’ll take it from you?”

It’s _ meant _to be a bad joke. Kageyama’s spent his whole life crafting this trade, has been putting the proverbial foot in his mouth since he was young, so he is genuinely surprised when Oikawa meets his eyes, sincerely, and breathes out an almost wounded, “Maybe.”

“You promised you’d play me tomorrow,” Kageyama reminds him, his voice cracking slightly. 

Oikawa’s fingers are smooth on Kageyama’s cheeks when he reaches up to cup his face, drawing him back closer, and he nods with a soft hum, “Pretty," and then he’s _ so very _close, his lips barely a hairpin trigger from Kageyama’s own. 

And it must be the smell of it—of liquor, of Oikawa’s cologne, perhaps—because Kageyama feels intoxicated enough to take the surge forward himself. The very tips of Oikawa’s fingers slide down along his cheeks, his shocked cum delighted squeal running pleasantly between their lips. It seems almost calculated that this man keeps his hair as long as it is, for Kageyama finds easy purchase in the chestnut curls. 

Oikawa pushes back, sloppy yet expertly, his hands exploring every midnight strand of hair—_ tugging _—and it is not his first time, Kageyama knows. He thinks it should scare him in some way, but it feeds in to him like a challenge. 

“Get a room!” someone shouts. It’s familiar, perhaps Kuroo, but Kageyama is more concerned when Oikawa pulls back, looks at him with pupils so blown that his eyes look almost _ black _and—

Kageyama remembers quite suddenly where they are, looking about the room. There doesn’t appear to be any less people milling about. He wonders if Hinata gave up on him, is already back in their hotel passed out on his side of the room. 

Oikawa leans in again, catches his lips once more, but there’s nothing heated in this exchange. It is a simple kiss, barely a brush of their lips before Oikawa seems to slide away, leave a small peck to the underside of his jaw. _ Barely anything. _And yet, somehow, it electrifies the blood in his veins, sends his pulse into orbit in record time. 

Soon the man lain across him gives out a short snore and Kageyama sighs, maneuvering himself with the little space he has further down into the couch. He thinks the fabric will leave burn marks in the morning, but Oikawa snuggles in closer to the junction of his shoulder and neck and all the complaints on Kageyama’s mind seem to melt away. 

“I’ll play,” Oikawa says at some point, voice laced with sleep. “With you,” he continues, drowsily, “show you I’m good.” 

And Kageyama has no doubts on that.

He remembers, belatedly, to maneuver Oikawa onto his side. Just to Kuroo’s orders. Somehow, despite laying in the thick of the party, other guests coming and going at the foot end they’d left on the couch, and the chill leaking in through the open door, Kageyama finds himself slipping quite peacefully into sleep. 

Oikawa's bruise is definitely purple come morning. _ A pretty little shiner, _Kuroo had called it over the wails of Oikawa's first discovery of last night's souvenir and Kageyama was surprised to hear it over a different shout about, "Stains everywhere!" 

It had taken more convincing than Kageyama thought necessary to get Oikawa to keep to his promise of a match on the sand, but there's no disappointment when they do kick off a little game. The sun is already high and bright, waves curling up the beach as if they wish to join in the game.

Oikawa grins at him from across the net, the hand with the volleyball raising up to point a single finger at his opponent. Even with the angry, blotchy bruise under his eye, Kageyama can't help but feel a nice, quiet warmth blossom in chest. He wishes someone could paint the way it feels, something like an oil painting of the sun escaping into the sea, because he thinks something like _ this _ deserves to hang in a museum. 

"Don't forget to call dibs on the ball, Tobio-chan~!"

**Author's Note:**

> *jazz hands* I'm sorry.


End file.
